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TROOP'S MELONPOOL: SPEAKING WITH WEBCARTOONIST
STEVE TROOP
by Jennifer Contino (The Pulse)
Mix
three aliens, a clone, a telepathic dog, and a 220-lb hamster
together here on Earth and have them try to blend in with
our pop culture and society, while trying to find a way home,
and you've got all the ingredients for comic goodness. Steve
Troop's daily Keenspot webcomic, Melonpool
combines all those elements and more in a strip that's a mix
between Gilligan's Island and Star
Trek. Troop's always loved drawing and creating and
finds Melonpool
to be a good expression and outlet for his creativity. THE
PULSE caught up with Troop to talk comics, Keenspot,
and more.
THE PULSE: How did you get interested in creating
comics?
STEVE TROOP: One of my earliest memories
is of reading "Peanuts" with my father on Sunday
mornings. In fact, one of the comics I remember reading in
the newspaper with him when I was a kid featured a life-sized
poster of Charlie Brown as the premise. I ended up finding
that comic in a collection recently with a copyright date
of 1974, putting me at about 2 when I read it originally with
my dad.
So, that sparked a lifelong interest in cartooning, which
I continued as i grew up. a lot of my early drawings were
of animated cartoons I saw on TV like Fred Flintstone, but
I started drawing my own characters when I was five, and by
the time I was 11, I was doing comics with continuing story
lines.
THE PULSE: Have you always been an artist? How did
you work to develop your artistic talents and skills?
TROOP: I started drawing in crayon when
I was about three. I used to use up all the black crayons,
and leave most of the colored ones untouched because I drew
so much.
My parents and grandparents were very encouraging of my art
-- most of which was copied off TV -- when I was very young,
and I had two factors that helped me to draw a lot as a child:
First, my Granddad Troop was a retired architect. He gave
me his old drafting table on my 6th birthday, as well as a
lot of his old tools and taught me how to use them. I still
use that drafting table to draw the strip.
Second, my maternal grandmother won 10,000 sheets of 11x17
Xerox paper on a raffle when I was about five and a half,
and gave it all to me. She was always entering raffles and
contests, and to the best of my knowledge, this was the only
one she ever won. I ended up using up all the paper in less
than six months.
I took very few art classes growing up. A few here and there,
I guess, but it's not like I studied art diligently (maybe
that shows in my work?). I got really into video when I was
about 14, though, and that helped me a lot in drawing comics,
because the aspect ration of video screens is almost the same
as the standard three or four panel strip. It also taught
me about pacing and constructing stories and gags. A lot of
people thought I'd go into the movies instead of pursuing
art when I was a kid.
THE PULSE: How did you get involved with online comics?
TROOP: In 1993 or 1994, a couple of my friends thought I
should have a Melonpool
website. I had no idea what the web was. Back then, there
was little, if anything artistic on there. They started showing
me some of the "cool" stuff online -- like a webcam
to a constantly-brewing coffee pot in Indiana.
I was less that impressed, but by 1995, they'd convinced
me to put on an online portfolio, and a few strips. It wasn't
much of a website, and I never updated it, but it still managed
a few hundred hits.
Between 1995 and early 1996, I started submitting to syndicates
rather heavily, and managed to build up a considerable backlog.
After being rejected several times, I decided to start posting
them one a day online, and even set up a subscription service
so nobody missed an installment. I started The Melonpool
Website updating strip on April 28, 1996. As far as I
know, there were only about two or three other webcomics updating
at that time, and I was the only one with a subscription service.
THE PULSE: Prior to working on the webcomics what
comics work had you done?
TROOP: Right out of high school, I worked
for a year as an animator on the FOX series "Attack of
the Killer Tomatoes." I'm not sure if that really counts
as comics-related, but it did lead to me coloring comic books
for In Color, who colored for Batton Lash (Supernatural
Law) and Image (WildC.A.T.S, Spawn, Supreme).
In Color wanted to get into publishing, so
they published The Melonpool Chronicles in
June 1996. I also lettered a couple issues of The
MAXX and a comic called The Horseman.
THE PULSE: What is your webcomic, Melonpool about?
TROOP: Melonpool's
a combination of "Star Trek" and "Gilligan's
Island" with a little unnecessary time travel thrown
in for good measure. A lot of the adventures center around
the crew trying to get home or travelling through time or
trying to promote the next teen pop star. It's very much an
episodic gag-a-day sci-fi serial, if there is such a thing.
It's located daily at http://www.melonpool.com.
THE PULSE: What inspired this series?
TROOP: I've been drawing Melonpool
in one form or another since I was five years old. Certainly
my love of TV has factored greatly into it -- particularly
"Gilligan's Island" and "Star Trek." I
know it's the type of strip I'd like to read everyday, and
fortunately, I've been able to find thousands of other people
that enjoy these sort of things as well.
THE PULSE: Who are the main characters?
TROOP: Mayberry Melonpool: a TV-addicted
alien that strives to be as good a captain as his hero, William
Shatner.
Ralph Zinobop: The coffee-addicted crackpot inventor that
only wants to get home and keeps Mayberry around only for
a scapegoat.
Sam T. Dogg: A hyper-intelligent dog which is the only member
of the crew that possesses common sense.
Sammy the Hammy: One of Ralph's genetic experiment gone horribly
awry. A 5-foot-tall, 220-lb hamster that acts as the ship's
engine by running on a 12-foot hamster wheel.
Ralphie Zinobop: A "good" clone of Ralph.
Roberta Smeffinfeffer: The only member of the cast competent
enough to hold down a job for any stretch of time. She also
acts as ship's doctor, even though she has very little real
medical experience.
Jalea Bates: A former protocol droid-turned pop star. She's
actually had a few hits and recently turned into a real human
being.
THE PULSE: How did you come up with a cast of aliens,
overweight hamsters, and telepathic dogs?
TROOP: They all came along little by little.
Mayberry was first, and early-on, I thought he should have
a dog. The dog wasn't always telepathic(pre-webcomic), but
it was the best way to make him part of the stories I wanted
to tell.
It always bothered me that Charlie Brown didn't understand
what Snoopy was thinking, so I thought if I made the dog an
alien that was telepathic, but basically looked like a dog,
that might be fun, and that's worked rather well, so far.
I had a hamster when I was about 11, and added Sammy to the
cast at about that time. He became the engine for the comic
book in 1996, and that helped define the character quite a
bit -- at least as far as why anyone would need a huge hamster.
Ralph started out as an inventor, but quickly became more
evil as the strip progressed, simply because it was a lot
funnier.
Each of the original characters had a good 10 years of development
before they hit the web. Of the characters I've added in the
last seven years, each has been added for specific stories,
and just kept hanging around. I hate it when things don't
get resolved -- like how Jim Davis just dropped Lyman one
day, so my cast just keeps getting bigger as it goes along.
I combat this by only involving a few of the characters in
each storyline, so that readers won't get too confused trying
to keep up with all of them.
THE PULSE: What is the toughest part to making it?
TROOP: Finding the time. I try to get ahead,
but it's constant uphill battle. I also strive to make each
one funny. I hate strips that think a lame cliffhanger will
keep people coming back. Sure, I like to spin yarns as I go
along, but I want each one to have some degree of humor to
them. Sometimes I'm able to throw in two or three mini punchlines
in to each strip, and that's always gratifying. This refusal
not to release strips that aren't funny, makes the strip better,
but it also hinders it a bit, because we all can't be funny
all the time, and therefore the strip is known for it's hiatuses.
I'm trying to keep those from coming, and last year I was
pretty successful.
THE PULSE: What's coming up in the series?
TROOP: Lots of time travel, a war with the
G.R.A.I.S.E. (basically those gray aliens on the cover of
Whitley Streiber's Communion books), and possibly a space
battle with a Terraformed asteroid that resembles "Fantasy
Island."
THE PULSE: How often is it updated?
TROOP: As often as I can. Usually daily
with hiatuses whenever my life or my day job get in the way.
THE PULSE: Why was Keenspot a good place to publish
with?
TROOP: I refused to go with Keenspot
for over a year before I finally joined. The best thing about
Keenspot
are the friendships I've made with other webcartoonists. Before
joining, I had only met one or two other webcartoonists, but
now I know 20-30. I finally realize that the problems I have
drawing the strip aren't unique. That was the best part of
joining -- also, my hits are about 10 times higher than when
I was posting by myself. I think the cross-pollination of
our audiences is the main reason for that.
THE PULSE: What does it offer that others don't?
TROOP: The cross-pollination. Also, I hosted
my own website for about $35 a month for four years before
joining Keenspot. Just by signing with them,
I put the website into profits.
THE PULSE: Who are some of your creative influences?
TROOP: Bill Watterson (Calvin and
Hobbes), Charles Schulz (Peanuts),
Sherwood Schwartz (Gilligan's Island).
THE PULSE: Why should people check it out?
TROOP: It's one of the few webcomics out
there that doesn't rely on its seven years of backlog to make
itself funny. As a kid, I hadn't seen the first 25 years of
"Peanuts," but I still understood that Snoopy thought
he was a World War I flying Ace and that Linus loved his blanket.
I try to make each story line stand on its own in some way.
You can understand the characters fairly easily, and even
though I refer back to old story lines, I also take great
effort to fill in new readers as to what's happening.
Sure, it's an added bonus to read the whole thing, but it
kills me when I hear people at cons tell me that they don't
read my strip because it's got such an extensive archive.
I really don't think it's necessary, and it bothers me more
than a little bit that so many webcomics are only funny if
you've ready every story that came before it. I know a lot
of people disagree with me in that, but let's face it -- I
draw a newspaper strip that just happens to be on the web
and not in print.
THE PULSE: What do you enjoy the most about this
project?
TROOP: The fans. Also, a lot of webcomics
say that reading Melonpool
made them realize that you can do a quality comic strip on
the web. It's very satisfying to hear Jeff Darlington (GPF),
Thomas K. Dye (Newshounds) and David Willis
(It's Walky) name me as being a major influence
in their drawing strips.
THE PULSE: What other projects are you working on?
TROOP: Well, there's always that puppet
movie featuring my characters I always talk about. I've had
Melonpool
puppets since about 1994 and puppeteer friends that work the
cons for me every year. If I ever have about $100,000 lying
around, I'll make the best non-Henson puppet film ever!
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